Re: Chinese & Maya writing systems

From: LEE Sau Dan (danlee_at_informatik.uni-freiburg.de)
Date: 08/24/04 

Date: 24 Aug 2004 12:15:07 +0200

>>>>> "Yuri" == Yuri Kuchinsky <yuku@trends.ca> writes:

    Yuri> Such as,

    Yuri> -- They're glyphs and have variants.
    Yuri> -- Each have elements which get repeated in other glyphs.
    Yuri> -- They both fit into squarish blocks.
    Yuri> -- There are pictographic elements in each writing.
    Yuri> -- There are phonetic elements in each writing system.

    Yuri> Too bad that for some here all this is complete news... :)

s/news/knews/

Other than fitting into squarish blocks, which other writing systems
do not really possess the features listed above?

And you've missed something, too:

        -- They use shapes rather than colours to distinguish meanings.
        -- They have been encarved into stone or other hard objects.
        -- They are large enough to be visible with the naked eyes.
        -- You can write them with a pen (something that leaves a mark)
           on a surface.
        -- They're two-dimensional, not three-dimensional (c.f. knotting)
        -- They are persistent (c.f. speech)
        ...
        ...

    Yuri> Since these two writing systems seem to have quite a few
    Yuri> things in common, they might be related in some way.

They have quite a few things in common, that are shared by most other
writing systems. They have few things in common, that are not found
in other writing system.

    Yuri> That's a pretty comprehensive listing of the cultural
    Yuri> parallels between China and the Americas, with an additional
    Yuri> bibliography.

That's not to hard to imagine, once you've learnt about the
land-bridge across the Bering Strait.

    Yuri> They also comment upon the similarities in the reading order
    Yuri> between Chinese and Maya writing (something you failed to
    Yuri> note).

What reading order?

    Yuri> The Mayan hieroglyphics were generally written in paired
    Yuri> vertical columns; they read from left to right, and then top
    Yuri> to bottom, in a sort of a zigzag pattern.

Sorry, you're confusing the Chinese script with the Ancient Egyptian
Hieroglyphs. Chinese has never been written in a zigzag way (except
perhaps in certain word games, special 'poems' or as a naive method of
encryption).

    Yuri> As I understand it, the reading order in the ancient Chinese
    Yuri> was similar if not the same.

You've got it wrong. 

-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     +Z05biGVm-                          ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

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